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Without the proverbial paddle

The Republicans have had their chance. They have brought us unlimited weapons of war in our streets, open bribery of Congress members by corporations, murkiness in public business, and Donald Trump.

Small “d” democracy can’t survive like this. Either we have to change things quickly or give up and surrender to corporate fascism.

The Democratic Party with all its flaws and imperfections is the only hope we have. If American democracy is to survive, the old guard Democrats and Progressive Democrats and Democratic Socialists all have coalesce around first priority issues.

The most important first priority issue is campaign finance reform. Fix campaign finance and all of the guns and lying and corruption will go away. Fail to fix campaign finance and all is almost surely lost forever.

People who run for office under the Democratic banner have a huge moral responsibility to the nation to be as morally fit as humanly possible. You can’t campaign on reform, if your own party’s candidates are easily impugned. Please Don’t run for office as a Democrat, if you have skeletons in your closet, blood on your hands, secret sexual infidelities in your past or your fingers in anyone else’s cookie jar.

And, if you are a voter, learn to value moral fitness over any petty policy differences. Any Democrat, whether liberal, old guard or establishment in any office in America is better right now than any Republican. If you doubt that, look out your windows.

If Democrats splinter and don’t stick together on core principles in 2018 and 2020, we are all up the creek without a paddle.